| Letter from Bill Delahunt and Jeff Flake
to dissidents December 28, 2006. Martha Beatriz
Roque
Assembly to Promote Civil Society
Gisela Delgado Sablon
Independent
Libraries Project
Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz
Cuban Commission for Human
Rights and National Reconciliation
Vladimiro Roca
Social Democratic Party
and spokesman of "Todos Unidos"
Havana, Cuba Dear Friends,
Thank you for your letter of December 16, which we received from the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana. We also saw the statement that you issued on
November 23, in which you call for an end to the restrictions that the United
States imposes on travel and the sending of aid to Cuba. We agree that the elimination
of those restrictions would provide humanitarian and many other benefits to the
peoples of both our countries. We also want you to know that in talks with Cuban
officials in Havana, we once again urged the elimination of travel restrictions
that the Cuban government imposes on its own citizens. We would like to
address your questions about the GAO report on the Cuba programs of the U.S. Agency
for International Development. We have sought information about the USAID
program. We began by asking direct, routine questions of AID officials. After
that agency declined to answer questions, we asked GAO, an auditing agency, to
do a report. The report found that there are serious management problems
in the program. Some of USAID's management failures have led to excesses
that have subjected the program to public ridicule. We expect that the program's
management will be improved. Your letter is the first information we have
received regarding an interruption of aid under this program. The U.S. Interests
Section did not mention this in our conversations. We do not doubt the information
you are providing us, but we would be surprised if the Administration were to
have reacted to the GAO report by suspending humanitarian aid. No one in Congress
has asked for aid to be suspended, and we know of no one in the Administration
who supports such a step. Nonetheless, as we noted above, it is often difficult
to obtain information about this program. We will seek answers to your questions
and we will ask that the Administration answer you directly. We and our
colleagues very much appreciate your letter and your views on these issues. We
have long believed that the U.S. travel restrictions and other aspects of the
embargo block contacts that we should be encouraging between our two countries
- exchanges of information and ideas, family visits, student and people-to-people
exchanges, humanitarian aid of all types. We believe that, especially now, the
relations between the Cuban and American peoples should be far broader than merely
those envisioned in U.S. government programs. As we continue our work we hope
we will always be able to count on your candid opinions. Sincerely, Bill
Delahunt
Jeff Flake | 
